A household sewing machine is generally provided with a bed, a foot, and an arm. A presser bar having a presser foot mounted at the lower end thereof is supported vertically movably by a head situated at the distal end of the arm. The head also has a presser foot lifting lever mounted thereto which vertical operation vertically moves the presser foot along with the presser bar.
A conventional presser foot lifting lever has a handle integrally provided at the distal end thereof to allow user operation. For instance, the sewing machine disclosed in JP 2002-66181 A (patent document 1) has a presser foot lifting lever mounted to the head so as to project into the recess defined by the bed, the foot and the arm. The sewing machine disclosed in JP H08-57174 A (patent document 2) has a presser foot lifting lever mounted to the head such that the presser foot lifting lever projects rearward relative to the laterally-oriented arm in front view.
The sewing machine described in patent document 1 has the presser foot lifting lever mounted to the head so as to project into the aforementioned recess. Thus, such arrangement provides high operability of the presser foot lifting lever when the user faces the sewing machine with the arm extending in the lateral direction. However, such disposition of the presser foot lifting lever has negative aspects during the sewing operation such as: the handle of the presser foot lifting lever interfering with the user's hands upon rearrangement of the workpiece, and the workpiece being caught by the handle of the presser foot lifting lever when sewing a large workpiece that projects into the recess. As described above, such presser foot lifting lever becomes an impediment to the sewing process.
Conversely, the presser foot lifting lever of the sewing machine described in patent document 2 is attached to the head so as to project rearward relative to the laterally oriented arm. Thus, the problem experienced in the sewing machine described in patent document 1 is resolved. However, such arrangement in turn gives rise to poor operability since the user is required to operate the presser foot lifting lever by extending his/her arm around to the rear side of the head.
To summarize, the presser foot lifting lever projecting into the recess and the presser foot lifting lever projecting rearward have contradicting advantages and disadvantages, thus it has been a challenge to the industry to overcome the disadvantages at once.